Senate Leader Reid Says Immigration Law to Pass Congress

Lawmakers will work together and
enact legislation to change U.S. immigration policies, Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid said on ABC’s “This Week.”

Four Democratic and four Republican senators released on
Jan. 28 a framework for the most comprehensive immigration law
revamp in almost three decades. Their plan, which has yet to be
drafted into legislation, includes a path to citizenship for
some of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, tougher
border security and stronger prohibitions against racial
profiling.

“This legislation is going to pass,” said Reid, a Nevada
Democrat. “It’s certainly going to pass the Senate. It would be
a bad day for our country and a bad day for the Republican Party
if they continue standing in the way of this.”

Asked whether legislation would make it through the
Republican-controlled House, Reid said: “the answer is yes.”
Republican resistance to letting the children of gay and lesbian
immigrants come to the U.S. is another “excuse” for blocking
any proposals, he said. “The American people are past
excuses.”

A day after the immigration proposal came out, President
Barack Obama said he wanted to see a law passed by mid-year. His
senior advisers outlined plans in a Jan. 29 conference call with
more than a dozen business executives, including Joe Echevarria,
chief executive officer of Deloitte LLP; Dan Akerson, chief
executive officer of General Motors Co. (GM); Greg Brown, CEO of
Motorola Solutions Inc. (MSI); and Steve Case, Revolution LLC CEO.

New Revenue

Reid also said on ABC that he would continue to insist on
new tax revenue as part of any plan to replace $1.2 trillion in
automatic spending cuts scheduled to take effect March 1, half
from defense programs.

“There are a lot of tax loopholes that should be closed,”
including tax breaks for oil companies and corporate jets, Reid
said in the ABC interview, broadcast yesterday.

Republicans including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky have said they won’t agree to any new
revenue beyond the tax increases in the Jan. 1 deal that averted
the so-called fiscal cliff.

Asked if he was comfortable having Senator Robert Menendez,
a New Jersey Democrat accused of receiving improper gifts, serve
as the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
Reid said Menendez would “do a wonderful job.”

“I have confidence he did nothing wrong,” Reid said on
ABC yesterday.

The U.S. Senate Ethics Committee is reviewing the
allegations, said Republican Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation searched the West Palm
Beach, Florida, office of Salomon Melgen, an eye doctor and
longtime Menendez friend and donor, on Jan. 29. Menendez wrote a
$58,500 check Jan. 4 to reimburse Melgen for two 2010 trips the
lawmaker took to the Dominican Republic on Melgen’s private jet,
according to Menendez spokeswoman Tricia Enright.